It's a cost benefit analysis. In SR3, when it was easy to spend millions on a few peices of 'ware, there would be no reason for the military to spend that much, except on the most elite of units. However, now that 'ware is affordable, there's no reason not to get it for soldiers, especially with military contracts and only a few pieces, which could total less than 50,000 ?, easily. Soldier's training and equipment, in modern day, can easily get very, very high, depending on the branch of the military. Add in the fact that most military outfits don't care nearly as much about Essence as an individual soldier might... Well... Let's get the DocBot primed!

And that's what happens as technology gets older - it becomes cheaper and more people get it.

And it gets more and more utilized by the military.

So really cool shadowrunners go for bioware or genetech. Cyberware is for those over-the-top shadowrunner from back in the 50's and 60's

Are there instances in the books of 'cool' shadowrunners who have some sort of inexhaustible financial backing and constantly have the newest deltaware and such?  Or are they always corporate drone slave villains who sold their souls?

In the novel Aftershock one of the runners is a CEO. Who runs to see what his employees are hiring runners to do.

Ok, time to pull out the needle, and burst a few bubbles.

Cyberware has gotten cheaper over the years.  So have drones, for that matter.  Dobermans are 3000 =Y=.  Steel Lynx's are 5000 =Y=. 

Even the cyber needed for rigging is cheaper.  10K for a control rig.  500 for a datajack for you to connect the rig to a comlink.

Let's face it.  Drones don't decide to go shadowrunning.  Drones don't sleep.  Let's face it, drones are more cost efficient than your average soldier.  Not to mention the fact that when you lose a drone you don't have to explain to anyone while you killed their son/daughter. 

The only time it make sense to cyber a soldier is when they're special forces where you need to give a small team a huge edge.  Which is also where you really want your mentally and physically toughest troopers, as well as the most loyal.  So, while you're there writing your "I'm ex special forces" backgrounds, take some time to explain how you got through all of the training; the psychological tests to determine your fitness, loyalties, and patriotism; and why/how you managed to get out without them taking back some of their investment.

Although, on the plus side, gear is cheaper, and your 250K cap is easier to explain than that 1 mil ever was.

Let's face it (To use your terminology), Drone's don't think. Life is cheap. There is to much of it and it's teaming all over the place even after the diseases and whatnot. Overcrowding is something that exists -bad- especially in cities. This makes labor cheap. An individual with a little training -is- going to be better than a drone because they don't have a pilot rating making decisions. A rigger can self control a single drone at the same time, otherwise it's a network, a chain of feeds, pilot ratings are awesome, but they're also expensive.

A person can also be hired, given a side arm, some combat drugs, trained how to shoot and some body armor for a lot cheaper than a single drone. This is not to say that Drone's -aren't- used more often, but they are -not- replacing people. People work in shifts. People don't require gasoline or electricity or regular maintenance even if they're not shot at. Riggers are in high demand, you use a rigger to supplement security, not to replace it completely.

A steel lynx is -big-. People can go places a Steel Lynx can't go relatively easily. When you start adding up all the drones that are necessary to replace the capabilities of a -single- human being, the costs aren't all that cheap anymore.

It's cheaper on the budget to hire ork's and trolls and humans and dwarves and elves than it is to fully mechanize a security force.

Another good thing about people, they don't typically get shut down from EMP's.

Also, the basic stupid metahuman is smarter than a drone.  Not, perhaps, when the drone is acting under precise enough orders, but under general orders humans are a lot better at figuring stuff out.  Drones are pretty cheap, but they're not as cheap as people, since there are no maintenance costs... You let them take care of their own maintencance.  Drones are definitely all over the place in high sec zones because they provide an extra layer of security to reinforce the meatcops.  But they don't send drones out alone into the sprawl to keep order, that would assume that they gave a shit about the sprawl, and that their drones wouldn't be shot down for fun by go-gangers who they'd have no chance of finding or catching without doing really hard work for the benefit of really poor people.  It's pure naivite to think cops now or in the future do that kind of stuff.

You also have to add in that a drone operating under precise orders has absolutely zero ability to operate outside those precise orders. They don't have AI's that make them capable of evaluating a situation and reacting to it in the appropriate manner. They are useful tools, but people are still better in any environment which requires adjusting to variables. Aka just about every combat situation as a plan only truly lasts until contact with the enemy.

Drones are awesome, don't get me wrong, they're cheap and very useful, but not as useful as thinking individual who is trained to handle a situation.

Plus, despite all that, no matter how cost efficient it may be, I have a hard time believing that a security force would entirely replace human forces, for one simple reason. Humans like humans. Even if a person costs more, having a person guarding you gives some semblance of familiarity, which makes you feel safer, even if you might not be. I'm not a psychologist, though, I just pretend to be one on the Internet.

Um.  I'm not proposing that drones would replace your average footsoldier.  People are definately more adaptable in combat than any drone.  (The key word being 'adaptable'. Soldiers are not paid to think; they're paid to follow orders.) 

My point is that any amount of money I divert to cyberware for soldiers is money I have to take away from drones and drone riggers.  So, let's say I'm going to spend 25,000 nuyen per soldier in cyberware.  For a 40 man platoon, that would total 1 million nuyen.  So, why should I spend my money on cyberizing out my soldiers when I could add more drones and/or drone riggers?  Add in surgery costs for installing and then removing (cause they're not going to let you keep the government's cyber) all their ware, and you have additional costs that could have gone towards adding more equipment to your units. 

It boils down to the bottom line.  It's just more cost efficient to add devices instead of cyberware or bioware that requires invasive surgeries for 100-200 thousand soldiers.  So, I still do not see cybersoldiers as the standard, even in 4th edition.

Cost efficient? That's what you think? How cost efficient is it when a corp goes so heavy on the drones that it's so easy to thrash their system. Drones have a rather serious weakness. They're fairly easy to take out. Oh look, rival hacker. He doesn't even need to get into your system! All he has to do is get close enough the drone is within their signal strength! Woowoo!

Drones won't replace soldiers. Period. I don't believe soldiers are going to be wired easier. There's no point. You want them faster? Give them some Jazz. You want them better shots? Smart goggles. All of this is much cheaper, and much -safer- than dealing with hordes of drones. However, at this point I think we're going to have to agree to disagree, because we seem to have rather set, and opposite opinions on the matter.

Overspecialization, in any way, is a weakness.

One that Runners would exploit.

One that is as easily detectable as drone heavy security. Well...

I don't think megacorps are that foolish.

Drones augment and support security forces. They don't replace them.

Grunts also don't get cyber/bioware. Grunts are expendable. Special forces and elite troops on the other hand are expected to be around awhile and have considerably more loyalty, so they are more likely to get the fun stuff.

*AGAIN* I was NOT talking about replacing soldiers with drones. What I'm arguing against is this:


I was arguing that while the cost of cyberware and bioware may have gone down, the costs and risks associated with cyberware and bioware were still not low enough to warrant putting it into your average footsoldier.  In fact, I said that very thing in my first post:


I'm thinking you misunderstood my statement about having to explain to anyone while you killed their son/daughter.  I made that statement because drones are obvious choices for dangerous jobs. I didn't make that statement to indicate that drones should replace soldiers. 

My entire point was that there were cheaper, less riskier options than putting cyberware or bioware into your soldiers/security guards.